Swan family at Weston Park

This was painted en Plein air, next to the edge of Lake Burley Griffin, in the large public park near Yaralumlah. While I was painting a swan family walked by and I was enchanted by the mother hurrying up the chicks and repeatedly checking on them, especially the slowest one. Another swan - maybe the dad - actually came up to where I painting and started looking in my bags and settled down to sit there until we finished. Athough it seemed a bit cheesy to paint swans, I wanted to include them as it was such a delight of the day.
I remember I really loved painting the Autumn weather, with the sun shining on the far shore and the way the pines along the path were lit up by the raking sunlight, as well as the curved shapes of the pine trees, against the sparkling lake behind. The focus of what I thought was beautiful was originally the distinctive upright poplars lining the other side and catching the light that are so typical of Canberra. But then the swan family came in front of us and needed to be added in. It was a lovely day, painting with a friend out in the park and fending off curious swans looking for snacks.

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Recently I joined a Plein Air group of friends that goes out once a week to local areas of bush around Canberra and that's lead to a return to traditional landscape skills. I'm posting the results of t
my plein air outings and experiments, from cheaper quick oil studies to larger more expensive works that are fully completed. I love painting in the outdoors because there's something that happens when you're painting outside that captures the atmosphere and qualities of light that just doesn't occur in the studio or using photographs.

I usually paint scenes to which I have an emotional response, whether it's a still-life of a domestic setting that tells a story of that house, or a street scene of old Sydney suburbs where I grew up; but in every case I'm choose scenes that have some emotional resonance for me. in currently doing a series about Sydney urban scenes, where I love painting the special light and architecture of Sydney and the feeling of the harbour city that I miss so much. I really love the European Impressionists and like to try to see and paint Sydney with a feeling of their sensibilities and techniques, like applying the quiet harmonies of Sisley to Paddington houses or Monet's prismatic colour and love of sunshine and different qualities of light to Sydney harbour scenes.

I also love painting scenes of my household, so I will be doing a series of paintings of Interiors like scenes from bathrooms or our dining rooms, where I paint my family doing small things like reading or relaxing or interacting with each other. I really love the Intimist painters and really enjoy painting these kind of 'mis-en-scenes' of regular family life like little dramas or painting still-lives of things like stuff strewn in a table-tops or an array of ornaments or even a meal being prepared on a kitchen bench that are just snippets of the haphazard moments of daily life., where these ordinary objects are beautiful as with Matisse's bedrooms and vases and table-tops . With my paintings of these kind of domestic snapshots, I'm really inspired by the ideas of the Vuillard and Bonnard that real life happens mostly in doors and these domestic scenes can show something greater of moments of beauty or grace that happen within mundane places and routines, and as does another favourite inspiration Fairfield Porter does in his painting of family and friends, convey that life lovingly and the small things that make it up affectionately.